Blondes, redheads & jet-black hair

Blazing scarlet hair is not the unusual sight it once was; and this is because wigs and hair extensions can be worn nowadays almost as a matter of course.  You can have whatever hair colour you want now, it seems.

It's only when I saw this shop front-window absolutely filled with a choice of wigs that I realised just how much a fact of life false hair is now.
They can look stunning when on though.

Railway station? Pub?

Codsall has come up with a very neat solution to the problem of what to do with the redundant parts of its railway station's buildings:  convert most of them into a very successful pub - as you see here!

The Station Pub, as you'd guess, has a lot of railway memorabilia; and is the only place I know where one can pace one's drinking by the number of trains going by the window.
Strangely enough, the rail service at Codsall Station seems to have gone from strength to strength in recent years.

And now... autumn

Yes, it is Autumn.  I admit it.  I've been hoping that the warm-ish weather would continue forever, but, as usual, it has not.

Still, it makes for lovely walking (when it is not showering), as here in the Hawksmoor Nature Reserve

Living wall

This is a 'green wall' - at Staffordshire University.  There are a number of these around the site.

They are part of a project to see if the plants in them, which are irrigated through small pipes in the trellis, can help reduce pollution in the urban environment.  The research is also looking at which plants can do the job best.

I guess the idea is, once that research has been completed, that they will encourage us all to put them up on our houses (etc).
Sounds good to me.

Cold ... kiln

This structure is to be found in the fields near Eland Lodge at Newborough.  It seems rather abandoned - without even a track going to it - so I guess it isn't used much now.

My first assumption was that it was a kiln, but someone who knows about these things says it's a old cold-store (fridge) or ice-house.  However, I still think it's a kiln, and probably a brick-kiln.
It doesn't seem to be mentioned in Joy Ellis' history of the village.

There was some burnt wood in it there when I saw it, even though it was cold to the touch.  Maybe now, locals use it occasionally as a giant chiminea...?!

Figurines in public

Passing along a pavement on a street of terraced houses, I walked by this frontage. There must have been two to three hundred little figurines arranged in front of this particular home.

I was massively impressed.
The owner had obviously decided that the risk of getting pieces stolen or broken was well worth the pleasure of showing them - and thus brightening up the neighbourhood. 
I feel it's a great example; and I wondered if I should be doing something similar.

Free works of art

The British Ceramic Biennial Show is under way in Stoke-on-Trent again, and lasts until November.  The exhibits on show have a wide range - from industry output to rather eccentric works of pottery art.

On this stand in the photo, the artist Lawrence Epps, who has been working at Ibstock Bricks, was showing some 15,000 items of mass-produced sculpted brick.  Members of the public were encouraged to pick up a paper bag and take one of the pieces home with them.
It certainly solves the problem of what to do with the exhibits at the end of the show...

Sexy redhead in church

A lascivious redhead? It can only be Mary Magdalene - here seen at the foot of the Crucifixion, in a church window.

By tradition, Saint Mary Magdalene - one of the three women in Jesus' life - was a reformed prostitute. So, medieval artists gave her flowing scarlet hair, a bit of bare flesh usually, and an erotic pose. 
But this glass is dated 1926, so it's a surprise to find a later artist still really going to town on poor old Mary.

The window is in Mapleton St Mary Church, on the Staffordshire-Derbyshire border.

The smallest room - and coldest

Original outside-toilets - 'privies' - can still occasionally be seen in the back-yards of some terraced houses in Stoke on Trent, though these days they are more often used as junk-storage areas.
Most however have been pulled down, and modern extensions built in their place.

But, in the alley-ways of some of the less renovated parts of the city - like Smallthorne, as here in this pic - one feels little has changed in 100 years, and I saw this perfect example there.
Municipal laws meant that they had to be built a little way from the house, which is why they are often the last building in the yard (making for an unpleasant walk on a winter day).  Even the coal shed is nearer to the house.

(Depending on which part of the world you come from, they are given different names - such as jakes or khazi. I'm fond of 'dunny' myself, though it's really Australian idiom).

This post appeared on the My Town Shoot-Out Photo-Blog

Misty day in the cemetery

Misty autumn day today, though the temperatures are still in the 'mild' range.

Tunstall Cemetery runs up the side of a long hill, so the graves at its top look out over the valley.